Mocking the NY SunPeople are mocking the New York Sun editorial from today. I don't have much to add except an extra chortle.Who has been the better journalist - Judith Miller or those attacking her in her own paper's pages?
Tough choice - I'll go with those attacking her. She was that bad. She was suckered in by a foreign influence (Chalabi) who persuaded and misled her (at best) about WMD, enabling and empowering an inept and conniving American president and his secretive cabal to fix the shady untelligence around a wrong-minded foreign policy - and lie our nation into a war for which he had no adequate plan.
Yep - Final Answer. I'll go with the ones attacking her.
Aldon Hynes on PovertyThe always-creative Aldon Hynes (who is one of my fellow writers at the Idea Consultants blog) was surprised and inspired by John Edwards when he saw him speak at an Opportunity Rocks tour stop at Yale last week. In early September, I wrote, “It is my dream that just as Freedom Riders hopped on buses over forty years ago to help bring equality to blacks in the south we will see a new generation of people head to the Gulf Coast to help rebuild and help fight poverty.”
So, when Senator Edwards invoked the image of Robert Kennedy in Appalachia, my friend excitedly said, “That is exactly what you were talking about.” I wondered if this is what I’ve been hoping for.
Senator Edwards said all the right things, talking about a movement, led by college students to touch the national consciousness and address the growing problem of poverty....
.....will we see a new generation of Freedom Riders? Will they document the plight of poor in America, generating great work like the writers from the WPA? Will we see a 21st Century equivalent of ‘Let us now praise famous men’? Will this result in a drastic reduction in poverty?
Let us hope so. I will do my part, which right now, is about spreading the word through the blogosphere. Go to Opportunity Rocks. If Senator Edwards is going to be visiting a school by you, please go. If not, try to get a school near you on the list for his next tour. If you do get a chance to go, please blog about it and spread the word.
Aldon is looking for ideas for a new Poverty Blog Project
Wynton Marsalis on
Rebuilding NOLA
Wynton Marsalis' speech at last week's National Press Club luncheon should not be missed. The title is "Higher Ground: Hurricane Relief & Rebuilding in New Orleans." He's an articulate and inteligent man - a credit and a gift to his city of New Orleans, and to America. [CSPAN]
Cheney Advisor John Hannah Key Figure in CIA Leak?Newsweek is reporting that John Hannah will be a key figure in the CIA leak investigation. [Oct 31 issue, Michael Isikoff, Sydney Schanberg]
Some lawyers close to the case are convinced Fitzgerald has a mysterious
"Mr. X" -- a yet unknown principal target or cooperating witness. Some press reports identified John Hannah, Cheney's deputy national-security adviser, as a potentially key figure in the investigation. Hannah played a central policymaking role on Iraq and was known to be particularly close to Ahmad Chalabi, whose Iraqi National Congress supplied some of the faulty intelligence about WMD embraced by the vice president in the run-up to the invasion. Last week Hannah's lawyer Thomas Green told Newsweek his client "knew nothing" about the leak and is not a target of Fitzgerald's probe. "This is craziness," he said.
The article says that, "behind the scenes, no one pushed the terror link harder than I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby." According to the Los Angeles Times, Libby began keeping close track of Wilson's interviews and television appearances, and pushed for an aggressive PR campaign against him. He also began chatting up reporters on his own.
(Hmmm...Note the emphasis that I've placed on the phrase "on his own".)
From the LA Times article Bush Critic Became Target of Libby, Former Aides Say:The intensity with which Libby reacted to Wilson had many senior White House staffers puzzled, and few agreed with his counterattack plan or its rationale, former aides said.
I'm sensing that Libby is being isolated for accountability here. He was obviously an agent for the Cheney office, and this did not occur in a vacuum or inside Scooter's private universe. We understand, however, how the most powerful influences will attempt to escape detection. Will the buck stop at Libby? Does Fitzgerald have more guts to his investigation to reach all the way to Cheney?
It remains to be seen.
Greensboro NewsPatrick Eakes has some final thoughts and reflections on the recent Converge South.
I'm sending a special congratulations to Patrick who, along with the ultimately groovy Mr. Sun, Ed Cone, Eugene Sims, and Dave Hoggard, won or received mention in the Go Triad Readers' Choice Best Blog Category. (Tip o'the hat to Jeff).
It's Ben!
Don't miss "5 Questions with Ben Hwang" at Go Triad.
Billy's Got A Brand New Blog! (Tip o'the hat to Davey)
See DarkTimes at Ed Cone's blog - a daily roundup of the hidden matter in the NYT opinion universe. Ed also features a recent article that he wrote for the News-Record about Greensboro with "vague prescriptions for the future."
Progressive Christians: A New Awakening"Progressives should be even more hopeful about what's happening with the Christian Left. All across the country, there is an awakening. For the first time, Progressive Christians are coming to see that their religion has been effectively hijacked by people with an agenda. An agenda they do not share. Voices which were silent are being raised and the assumption that Christianity means Christian Right is being challenged and changed. For example, next week thousands of Progressive Christians will be calling on their Senators to reject a repeal of the estate tax, as well as cuts to programs like Medicaid. In so doing, they will reclaim a Christianity focused on the elimination of poverty."
Courtney Dillard of Portland, Oregon. Courtney is a professor of rhetoric and media studies at Willamette University [Blue Oregon]
.
Bloggers: We Are the Ones We've Been Waiting ForFrom Charley on the MTA at Blue Mass. Group:What is the best way to get elected officials to notice the issue and act [on social change]? [John] Edwards is concerned with helping create a political movement against poverty. Currently elected officials don't see it in their own interests to do anything. "You are the people to do it," he said.
But concretely, what does that mean? What's the "funnel", by which I mean, where does all the action and organizing and publicizing lead? Is it Letters to the Editor? Direct political action? Edwards hopes that blogs, reflecting citizen-level energy and enthusiasm, can help achieve a tipping point in which the mainstream media eventually picks up an issue and forces government officials to act.
....see..Taegan Goddard's three questions for John Edwards
My Space / My WarHave you heard about the My Space two-year anniversary concert to be heldf at Dodger Stadium (LA) on October 29?
A new batch of tickets will go on sale at 10am this morning. Only ten bucks each. Log on to VANS.com to purchase.
Speaking of My Space and LA, I got an invitation from my fellow blogger Colby Buzzell (aka CB) to be a connection at "My Space." The sig/quote CB uses from Kerouac-"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!" -J.K.
I am reading Colby's book "My War." I've said this from the first time I laid eyes on one of CB's writings from Iraq - he's an extremely important voice of the new generation of writers. This book is going to be a great film - I have no doubt. Check out these reviews/recommendations:"My War by Colby Buzzell is nothing less than the soul of an extremely interesting human being at war on our behalf in Iraq."
-Kurt Vonnegut
"My War is breathtaking. Colby Buzzell is the voice of a generation. His self-awareness is total and unromantic, his instinct for what matters unrelenting, his writing lyrical, heartbreaking, hilarious, and essential. We can read a thousand dispatches from Iraq, but we will never know the war-or ourselves-like we will after reading My War."
-Robert Kurson, author of Shadow Divers
"Incredible accounts of combat from a grunt's-eye-view."
-Rolling Stone Magazine
"The most extraordinary writing yet produced by a soldier of the Iraq war"
-Esquire Magazine
"In gutsy, sometimes profane prose, he takes you on a soldier's-eye view of the front lines of the war."
-Newsweek
"Remarkably blunt, honest and often hilarious."
-Chicago Sun-Times
"Striking....Buzzell tells the story of his year in Iraq with a steeliness that's both sincere and chilling."
-People
"Profound, profane....told with irresistible gallows humor and anger devoid of self-consciousness. Give[s] us a much deeper understanding of the war."
-Atlanta Journal Constitution
"My War" is the story of a young grunt trying to survive boredom and death in a war zone...What you soon realize about this stranger at the bar, Colby Buzzell, is that he can knock you off your barstool at a moment's notice with soul-jarring observations and darkly comedic insights into what it really means to be fighting and idling in this war."
-L.A. Times Magazine
Grade: A- "Funny, often surreal "What the @!%# am I doing here?" account of military life"
-Entertainment Weekly
"Raw, sardonic, and thrashingly honest, My War is a stellar grunt's-eye view of the Iraq war."
-Mens Journal
"Buzzell’s My War, written in a style reminiscent of Hunter S. Thompson and Allen Ginsberg, is fueled by an antiauthority, punk-rock attitude.”
-Poets and Writers magazine
CB -Congrats.
You rock.
